Costs on the road depend on how you travel, where you stay, how often you move, and even what ends up on your plate. If steak and lobster are your love language, your grocery bill will look different than ours. We eat simple and at home most nights. Thirty dollars of meat can stretch almost a month for the two of us.
We split chicken breasts in half and that makes six to eight meals. A pork loin becomes a stack of chops and gives us about ten dinners. Most of our meals come in under ten dollars for both of us and take about thirty minutes to make. We still enjoy a pizza or a shrimp dinner now and then but eating out adds up fast. This is a couple’s rhythm with grown kids, so your numbers may shift.
Utilities matter too. Propane can get pricey if you lean on the furnace, so we use an electric fireplace to take the edge off in winter. We cook on the stovetop and use the oven here and there, which hardly dents the tanks. The biggest propane draw is the furnace and the water heater. If your water heater can run on electric and propane, turning both on can make the hot water last a bit longer in the shower. Small comforts add up to better days.
Fuel is the quiet giant. Whether you pull a trailer or drive a motorhome, the mileage is usually under ten miles per gallon. Moving every couple of days means more gas and less time to see what you came for. Staying two weeks or a month steadies the budget and lets the place open up a little. I always ask myself, if we are already here, why not really be here.
Campground rates follow the same pattern. Many parks offer daily, weekly, and monthly pricing. A made-up example looks like this: thirty-five a night, two hundred a week, four hundred a month. The longer stay wins by a mile. There are other options too. Harvest Hosts and boondocking can cut costs, and some spots allow a generator. Solar helps if you go that route often.
Activities can be free or fancy. We chase walks, views, local libraries, and small museums. A national parks pass can make sense if you love the parks, covering entrance fees and sometimes discounting campsites. I always check the official site for details before we go so, I know what to expect.
Amenities change the math. Resorts with pools, hot tubs, game rooms, and weekend concerts are fun, and I have seen them run into the hundreds per night. Beautiful, no-frills parks with hookups and a view can be a fraction of that. Neither is right or wrong. It is simply a choice between sparkle and quiet, or a bit of both.
With our habits, we keep it around twelve hundred dollars a month. We cook at home, look for free or low-cost exploration, and favor monthly site rates over nightly ones. Your numbers will be your own, and that is the point. Glamping can be as simple or as fancy as you like. A little planning turns it into a way of living that feels good on the road and good on the wallet.